Most Sundays were tournament days, a “break time” for my mom, and so I was still able to go watch my Dad and brother compete. My best friend, Stephanie, went with us to keep me out of trouble. At first we behaved properly and sat quietly on the side, cheering in our subdued voices, trying hard not to be noticed. I shared my letters from Rusty about her adventures in Judo and how she was working hard to allow us to compete. She described training hard and talked about other, grown women she was teaching.

Sitting on the side of the mat, we always seemed to be under the watch of one of the Senseis and were often told to, “be quiet, watch, and maybe learn something.”   Stephanie and I watched the matches closely and talked more about how the tournament was held and the way it was refereed than the judo taking place during the match, although we noticed some of that also. We paid attention to how the officials acted and how the points were scored. We explored the buildings and walked outside whenever we could. One location was especially tempting for us. The tournament took place on the mats in the main training area; we had found a room upstairs that was full of mats, unused and out of the sight of the tournament officials. They hosted tournaments here once a month.

It wasn’t long before we snuck our uniforms into the car so we had them at the tournament. We had noticed other girls sitting on the sidelines, and quietly asked if they did judo and if they wanted to try to have a girl’s only tournament, in secret. There were only 5 or 6 and they all wanted to give it a try. We set a date and everyone brought their uniforms. At our agreed upon time, we all snuck away and went to the room upstairs; taking turns being the “Referee” we held our tournament. Everyone fought everyone. We paired up, and had fun. The goal wasn’t to see who was the best or who could beat who, it was to see if we could fight like the boys. We discovered that we could, even if we were girls.

The next few tournaments, we made our plans, and more and more girls joined us. When one of the Senseis or parents asked where we were going, we said that we found a quiet place to play upstairs and we would stay out of their way. By the 5^th or 6^th secret tournament we had 15 or so girls playing with us. We were discovering that we could fight just like the boys, we could do the throws that we were forbidden to learn, because they were not lady-like. We studied the tournament rules and tried to apply them. We also discovered that we could be “Officials” and act like we were in charge and knew everything. We learned how powerful we could feel when we weren’t restricted because we were just girls.

One of the most important rituals of our secret tournaments was sharing information we found about women in judo in other parts of the country. I shared my letters from Rusty. Other girls shared letters or newspaper articles. Several of us were privileged to travel to National level tournaments with our families and made startling discoveries there. We developed a network of young judo girls throughout the country that helped us know that things were changing. Of course, not fast enough for us.

In England, British women were competing against each other in sanctioned tournaments. They had modified rules for competition where gentleness and the aesthetic execution of techniques were more valued than the decisive ones. Aggression and true competition was discouraged and non-resistant, cooperative judo encouraged. The tournaments were held in separate rooms with the windows draped so no spectators could see the matches, to protect the modesty of the women.

In the Eastern United States, Women were holding Non-Tournaments. These had adults participating and were not held in secret. Because they were not really tournaments, they couldn’t really have medals or trophies. So the winners received tea cups or decorative knives, aprons and feminine trinkets. It didn’t matter what was awarded, it was the opportunity to compete that drew the women to these non-tournaments with their non-awards. They were un-sanctioned and un-approved and the men of Judo and the AAU fought against them. But yet, women continued to show up and participation grew.

We managed to keep our tournaments secret for much longer than we thought possible. One day we were discovered. One of the girls had gotten hurt. Arm locks were forbidden in the non-black belt divisions of the official, male tournaments. We allowed them in ours, since after all everything was forbidden to us. This time our inexperience worked against us. One of the competitors caught her opponent in an arm lock and the unofficial referee didn’t understand what was happening. The player’s elbow was dislocated and we had to take her down to see the doctor.

I think the Senseis knew we were up to something when we all came down in our uniforms and headed to the doctor. The tournament matches were stopped and they all went into the meeting room along with the 3 oldest girls. The rest of us sat in quiet terror, in a kneeling position on the mat close to the edge. We knew we would all be punished. An hour passed and we were having trouble staying still. The competitors were trying to stay warm and we could hear them talking about what we had done. The spectators milled around wondering when the tournament would start again.

Then one by one, the Senseis came out of the meeting room and asked everyone to clear the mats, except us girls. The head Sensei addressed the crowd and explained that we had been holding our own tournaments upstairs and that due to our inexperience and lack of supervision, one of us had been hurt. The reluctant solution that they had come to, was to allow us to compete in the tournament against the boys. We each also had to demonstrate a Kata (formal demonstration of techniques) at the beginning of each tournament and take a test about judo history. They took responsibility for not supervising us and we received no punishment. It was an unexpected and terrifying outcome. And completely against the AAU sanction rules.

Unknown to us, a small, very quiet Japanese woman was a guest at the tournament. Her name was already known to some of us, but none of the girls had met her. She was Ms. Keiko Fukuda, the highest ranking woman in the history of judo.